Service Providers

Service Providers (SPs) are independently funded projects or organizations that provide cyberinfrastructure (CI) services to the science and engineering community. In the US academic community, there is a rich diversity of Service Providers, spanning centers that are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to operate large-scale resources for the national research community to universities that provide resources and services to their local researchers.

XSEDE Federation

XSEDE coordinates and integrates the national cyberinfrastructure funded by the NSF while also reaching out to coordinate, integrate, provide support services, and be as inclusive as possible with the broader community. The extended organization created by the amalgamation of the XSEDE program and other organizations with which XSEDE collaborates is referred to as the XSEDE Federation. This includes many Service Providers that are autonomous entities from the XSEDE project but agree to coordinate/integrate with XSEDE as members of the XSEDE Federation. The XSEDE Federation includes those providers and consumers of services which will meet, to varying degrees, the requirements of interfaces with XSEDE and also will engage in the effective and sustained interactions required to develop and evolve those interfaces.

Three Levels of Service Providers are defined within the XSEDE Federation. SPs are classified as being at a specific Level by meeting a minimum set of conditions, described in detail in the Requesting Membership in the XSEDE Federation document. These Levels reflect the degree of coordination/integration between the Service Provider and XSEDE. Level 1 Service Providers are the most tightly coupled with XSEDE. Level 2 and Level 3 Service Providers are progressively more loosely coupled with XSEDE. The XSEDE Software and Services Table for Service Providers document describes the software and services integration expected by XSEDE for participating in the XSEDE Federation.

Depending on their Level of participation, Service Providers are required to integrate with XSEDE, such as, integration with the XSEDE User Portal, XSEDE Resource Allocation System, XSEDE Information Services, participate with XSEDE working groups on a period basis, and verify their integration annually. The Service Provider Checklist document is updated periodically to keep up with the ever evolving XSEDE cyberinfrastructure environment.

Service Provider Forum

The Service Provider Forum is intended to facilitate this ecosystem of Service Providers, thereby advancing the science and engineering researchers that rely on these cyberinfrastructure services.

The Service Provider (SP) Forum provides: an open forum for discussion of topics of interest to the SP community; a formal communication channel between the SP Forum members and the XSEDE project.

The Service Provider Forum was originally proposed as part of the governance structure for the XSEDE project, which recognized the need for a forum to serve as the formal interface point between the XSEDE project and the group of autonomous SPs. In this context, the SP Forum is the forum for interaction between XSEDE and SPs, discussing and mutually resolving issues where the interests of SPs and XSEDE overlap (e.g. networking, operations, security, allocations, accounting, user support, documentation, software environments, etc.). The SP Forum charter, membership and governance structures reflect the mutual relationships and responsibilities in this crucial governance body that must constructively support the XSEDE-SP interactions.

If you are interested in joining the Service Provider Forum, please contact spf-chair@xsede.org.